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This is not a story of sugar and spice and everything nice.
When Nina Faye was fourteen, her mother told her there was no such thing as unconditional love. Nina believed her. Now Nina is sixteen. And she'll do anything for the boy she loves, just to prove she's worthy of him. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost. What is she if not a girlfriend? What is she made of?
Broken-hearted, Nina tries to figure out what the conditions of love are. She's been volunteering at a high-kill animal shelter where she realizes that for dogs waiting to be adopted, love comes only to those with youth, symmetry, and quietness. She also ruminates on the strange, dark time her mother took her to Italy to see statues of saints who endured unspeakable torture because of their unquestioning devotion to the divine. Is this what love is?
Raw, compelling, and unflinching, Elana K. Arnold's newest novel explores the darkest crevices of femaleness. What girls are made of might just surprise you.
"Starred Review. Unflinchingly candid, unapologetically girl, and devastatingly vital." - Kirkus
"Because of its complex symbolism and graphic imagery, this well-written novel is best suited to mature YA readers." - School Library Journal
"Smart, true, and devastating, this is brutally, necessarily forthcoming about the crags of teen courtship." - Booklist
"Finally, finally, a book that is fully girl, with all of the gore and grace of growing up female exposed." - Carrie Mesrobian, author of the William C. Morris finalist, Sex & Violence
This information about What Girls Are Made of was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elana Arnold writes books for and about children and teens. Some of her books have been included on the LA Public Library's Best Books of the Year list, the Bank Street Best Book list, the YALSA "Best Fiction for Young Adults" list, have been ALAN picks, and have been selected for inclusion in the Amelia Bloomer Project. Her most recent YA novel, Infandous, won the Moonbeam Children's Book Award and the Westchester Fiction Prize. She holds a master's degree in Creative Writing/Fiction from the University of California, Davis and currently lives in Huntington Beach, California, with her husband, two children, and a menagerie of animals. She is represented by Rubin Pfeffer of Rubin Pfeffer Content.
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